“This is a case of principle,” EA’s Lucy Bradshaw said in a press release that accompanied the filing. “Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product. But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it. Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development.”

This could be interesting, but it probably won’t go anywhere.

Zynga’s response at the bottom of the article is hilarious. Loosely translated, they said, “We are committed to copying every popular game, and we know we can get away with it.” Sadly, they’re probably right.